Playing the Angel

Mute; 2005

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First things first: You can count me among that class of people who haven't paid the closest attention to Depeche Mode over the past, umm, decade. I don't imagine this is all that unusual. Sure, the music they've released seems fine enough. But laying claim to our brainspace takes more than that, and each album these guys produced seemed to be slotting them further and further into that place where groups just naturally wind up after a couple decades as a going concern-- the band version of adulthood. Band adulthood is where you've settled into enough of a groove that your core fans know who they are, and everyone else happily ignores your continued existence. Band adulthood is where you make perfectly fine and increasingly subtle and sophisticated new albums, and your members embark on highly touted Significant Solo Projects-- neither of which anyone can really work up any enthusiasm about.

Band adulthood means reviews that are a big swirl of stock phrases like "return to form" and "just may be their best since [insert classic here]"; it's a world of die-hard fans politely trying to convince everyone that actually, this new album, it's interesting, you should give it a listen. Band adulthood is a city where R.E.M. and Elvis Costello have offices downtown, and the Cure and New Order keep stopping by open houses in the suburbs. No mistake: people of all sorts still love their Depeche Mode; last year I even got to watch a 19-year-old metalhead dig back and convert. But people want their prime-era DM, not a paler adulthood. Even the titles of the band's last couple releases seemed to know it: after Ultra (!) and Exciter (!), I'm half-surprised they didn't manage to call one No Really, We're Still Worth It.

If you've caught any advance word on Playing the Angel, you'll probably have heard the same rumors that swirl around all band-adulthood records: That this is the one, the "return to form." That this isn't just the "best since Violator," but maybe even just as good. That they're about to pull off the same trick Morrissey did-- following the same path as always, and yet somehow getting everyone to sit up again and take notice. (Publicists help.) And while I wish I could take some bold, controversial true/false stance on that one, this album just won't let me. If you really are the sort of person who's been waiting with bated breath for a new Depeche Mode release, then don't worry: You'll love this. Dear everyone else: It's pretty okay.

It certainly sounds as good as anything they've done in a while-- and isn't that always the key with these things? Band-adulthood records leave everyone in fear of limp retreads, embarrassingly bombastic attempts to capturing former glory, ill-advised experiments, laughable bandwagon-jumping, or that ultimate horror of classic acts trying to ape the bands they're meant to have influenced. Depeche Mode have long managed to avoid those traps (say, "showing Linkin Park how it's really done"), and on this record they've done even better, hitting on something that feels solid and relevant and natural: a dense, buzzy web of sound that folds in the old arena anthems, the camp noir-gospel of the early 90s, and the polished micro-production of Exciter.

The whole problem of the "new" DM has always been the gap between the clean-lined synth clang of their prime era and the lush, fussy computer-assisted electronics of today; the most surprising tracks here shoot past that issue entirely. "Precious", the first single, works some slow-rolling "Enjoy the Silence" beauty-- but the whole thing's riding on burbling acid-synth lines, retro-classic and up-to-the-minute at the same time. "John the Revelator" does up-tempo "Master and Servant" pulse and "Condemnation" choir calls over ultra-modern bleep and click, "A Pain That I'm Used To" does slow industrialist grind, and some other tracks pull off something like Depeche Mode torch songs. Yes, they've got their style working, their production mostly down, and Dave Gahan's singing gets richer and better with each passing record.

Only here's the thing: Surely a pop album lives or dies by its songs. And while the sounds here, apart from some sterile "modern" clicks and flourishes, climb their way past the pitfalls of the 25-year-old band, the songs here can't. Give any songwriter a couple decades, and the same things will happen-- the writing gets progressively more subtle, more sophisticated, until eventually it's curiously free of spark, always skirting the obvious old hooks in favor of something too professional to even notice. It's all here: the arch, wandering melodies; the methodically constructed key changes; the weirdly formless slow-and-quiet epics; the standard lyrical stew of religion and lust and fragile, innocent, faithful things in a dark, dark world. Yes, this group has spent the past 15 years trading in mood and atmosphere-- much more so than the relentlessly tight pop of their 1980s arena days. Yes, given enough time, they'll gather up into something passably engaging. No, no one's asking for karaoke classics. But none of the moods and atmospheres and slow-growers here stand much of a chance of reaching out and drawing you in-- or of making a believer out of anyone who didn't believe already.

The end product, then, is one of those signature artifacts of the Adult Band: an album we hardly even need to review. Depeche Mode's core fans will flip for it; it's the best thing they've released in a long while. Everyone else? It's pretty okay. And these days, over a decade since Songs of Faith and Devotion, well, you already know which of those two camps you fall into.